Just when you think you’ve seen everything…you haven’t. Of course, some of the things you haven’t seen might better stay that way, but Spain has a menu of odd museums to tempt your jaded palate.
The Local.es has compiled a list of ten, some amusing, some sinister and one or two, well, touching. Have a look…
- Museum of Funeral Carriages, in Barcelona. It’s a dusty warehouse, but it has a huge collection.
- Ciudad Rodrigo, a small walled city, is the home of the Toilet Museum, product of a possibly obsessive local landlord who collected a huge assortment of chamber pots and more.
- Villaconejos has the world’s only known museum dedicated to melons and melon farmers. Each fall, it hosts a melon festival
- Some of the most explicit work of sculptor Xicu Cabanyes is on exhibit at Can Ginebreda in Girona. It’s described as “erotic wood” and probably not for kids.
- Art of another sort is to be found in Guadalest, where there’s a Microminiature museum, featuring, among other items, the Statue of Liberty in the eye of a needle and Goya’s painting, the Second of May 1808 copied onto a grain of rice. Oh, and a flea dressed as a bullfighter.
- Also in Guadalest, the Museo de Saleros y Pimenteros—yes, that’s the museum of salt and pepper shakers.
- Spain’s equivalent of the Tooth Fairy, Ratoncito Perez, has a museum in Madrid. The character is based on a 1902 children’s story.
While those are all fun, some of Spain’s stranger museums have a much darker side. Three from the list:
- The Witch Museum in Zugarramurdi marks the town’s role as the alleged center of occult activity that led to the Basque Witch Trials during the Inquisition.
- In Santillana del Mar, there’s a museum of torture, filled with instruments of pain and domination, mostly from the Middle Ages.
- And perhaps the most troubling, the Valley of the Fallen near El Escorial. Despite attempts to claim it as a memorial for all the victims of the Spanish Civil War, it remains in the mind mainly as Franco’s tomb, carved from the rock by political prisoners. Aside from his name above his tomb, there is no information there.
More pictures and details are at TheLocal.es
